Obama's Wright: 'White folks' greed'

By BEN SMITH

03/14/2008 10:18 PM EDT

The heart of Obama's defense of his relationship with Jeremiah Wright today is that the minister, as he knows him, is much less provocative than those recent sermons, and that specifically, the straightforward anti-American notes, and some of the racial edge, weren't visible to Obama as he attended the church.

There will, no doubt, be lots of reporting out of Chicago on this, but Obama's own first book suggests that some elements of Wright's style that are now controversial — particularly on race — aren't really new.

On Page 293 of my edition of "Dreams for My Father," Obama recounts Wright's "The Audacity of Hope" sermon. (I linked a version of this earlier today.)

Obama quotes this passage:

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!"